An Orwellian Outcome In Exams Case

CARPENTER

Girls around 12 years of age are being forced, one after another, to take off their clothes and then lie down on a table. Many are crying and begging to be allowed to seek help from their parents.

"Stop acting like babies," snarls the adult who has control over them, poking at their private parts. Some girls say they tried to escape by climbing out a window but were pulled back by the adult's accomplices. The adult confirms touching the girls' genitals, but denies that any victim was vaginally penetrated.

"I felt (the adult's) finger go into my vagina," says one young victim.

"It was horrible," says another. "It hurt physically, but it really mentally hurt knowing that somebody was doing this to me when I didn't want them to do it."

Distraught parents complain, but the adult was aided and abetted by a powerful organization, and the good old boys of local law enforcement declare the various perpetrators to be free of criminal accountability.

Therefore, as in Mississippi a generation ago, there is no justice in state courts, and the victims turn to the federal court system. A federal court in Scranton finds that the adult violated the rights of the victims. The powerful organization that was in cahoots with the adult is also found culpable by the federal court.

The judge says the physical contacts here represented a "substantial intrusion" on the victims' privacy and on their "private parts."

Now imagine that the adult who did all that is a private citizen, not affiliated with government in any way. It's just a case of a stranger committing those kinds of acts without the consent of the parents or children.

OK, now open your eyes and face

reality. All parts of that scenario actually happened, except for one thing. The person who committed those acts was working for the government.

Think about it. If the person who did that had not been affiliated with government, what would have happened? If that had been some private citizen, any private citizen, would the law's sanctions have been so mild? Would the powerful organization that facilitated those acts be allowed to blithely continue on its virulent way?

Not on your life.

As it was, the person who touched and allegedly penetrated the girls' private parts, against their will and against the wishes of their parents, is Ramlah Vahanvaty. Vahanvaty was hired by a government agency, the East Stroudsburg School District, at the time of the 1996 offenses.

Vahanvaty is also a physician, and thereby received the blind support of much of the local medical establishment, which apparently feels that parents are the last people entitled to have a say about what happens to their own children.

Early last week, the federal court found Vahanvaty and the school district guilty of violating the girls' rights. Last Friday, we learned that following the verdict, Vahanvaty settled with the victims for an undisclosed amount, leaving the school district's penalty to be decided in court. Later, the district was ordered to pay $7,500 to each of the eight girls who brought the civil rights lawsuit.

This week, it was reported that Vahanvaty's deal called for the payment of $25,000 to each child whose rights were so ruthlessly violated. So that's $32,500, tops, for each child.

If a private person or establishment committed those acts against those girls, you might expect we'd be talking years in prison or monetary awards along the lines of the $907 million verdict in the Ira Einhorn case in Philadelphia, or at least the $2.9 million awarded to a woman who blamed McDonald's for the burns suffered when she spilled coffee on herself.

But you see, these days we have two distinct classes of people in America: the privileged class of those in government, and then everybody else. "We are the government; trust us and only us" is the politically correct mantra of 1999 America.

We're all equal, but some are more equal than others, as George Orwell predicted several decades ago.